Funding facilitated through West Lancashire MP Ashley Dalton and the Lancashire Police and Crime Commissioner has enabled the kNOwKnifeCrime campaign to deliver its Every Second Counts workshops to young people across West Lancashire.
The workshops have been delivered at St Bede’s Catholic High School, Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Engineering College, Up Holland High School, Ormskirk High School and Burscough Priory Academy, positively impacting approximately 1,020 young people so far.
Education, prevention and life-saving skills
Every Second Counts creates an opportunity to have open and honest conversations with young people about the realities of knife crime. The workshops explore the dangers and consequences of carrying a knife, the risks of associating with someone who carries a weapon, and the potentially serious consequences of joint enterprise.
Alongside this preventative education, students take part in practical bleed control training. They are shown what to do in an emergency involving a catastrophic bleed, including how to control bleeding using simple direct compression and how to use the equipment contained within a bleed control kit.
The aim is to give young people the knowledge to make safer choices while also equipping them with practical skills and the confidence to respond in an emergency that could potentially help save a life.
The impact continues
The program will continue in October, when Every Second Counts will be delivered at West Lancashire College, extending the reach and overall impact of the project to even more young people across the area.
The response from schools has been extremely positive, with the campaign already being invited back during the next academic year to deliver workshops to different year groups. This provides an opportunity to build on the work already undertaken and ensure these important messages continue to reach more young people across West Lancashire.
The delivery of the program has also highlighted just how many young people have already experienced or been exposed to knife crime in some way. While those who choose to carry knives remain a minority, the workshops have reinforced the importance of early intervention, education and creating safe opportunities for young people to discuss these issues.
For the kNOwKnifeCrime campaign, Every Second Counts is about prevention, education and empowerment — giving young people the knowledge to understand the consequences of knife crime, the confidence to make safer choices and practical skills that could one day help save a life.
